It took us about three weekends of R&R to get back into schedule after the India vacation. We were just cruising through the daily grind, not cooking much or even going out much, mainly doing take-outs and quick fix meals. Siv getting sick in the middle really delayed the transition process. But finally we are back into action, went out both Thursday and Friday night, for happy hour and gourmet food which I’ve been missing so badly!

I had major plans for the weekend, first agenda item was to go to the farmer’s market on Saturday morning, but Seattle is extremely gloomy today. I woke up and looked out the window, and wanted to just crawl back under my blanket. A cruise ship docked at the pier is the only thing that reminds us that it is supposed to be spring now! I feel bad for all the tourists who booked the cruise months in advance, now packing up heavy coats instead of shorts.

Look how sad it looks today?

And see what it is supposed to look like at this time of the year. (from April 2007)
Can you blame me for not going out?

Anyway, now that I have nothing else to do, I thought of doing a me-me. I was tagged by Indian Girl who has an entire blog devoted to make up! She shares some great tips. I am glad she tagged me since that is how I discovered her blog. The tag is to write 6 quirky facts about me. I have done something similar before, but its been a while since I have let you all into the scary wonderland aka my weird mind.

When I got tagged, I asked the person who knows all my quirks the best to help me with it. He didn’t waste any time coming with some in one breath. Seeing the shock in my face, he quickly added some nice stuff too, but unfortunately the tag is about quirky facts, so I can’t use the nice stuff here…

6 Quirky Facts about Me

I am super messy. I don’t like too much organization, I can never find anything if everything is where it is supposed to be. My work desk always looks like a war zone. I always know where things are, till I start filing stuff away. Once something is filed away, there is no way I will ever find it again. So messy works for me. Not so much for Siv, so he cleans up after me all the time.

I am messy, but I am super clean. I wash my hands with soap many times a day. I hate hate hate public bathrooms, and if I was brave enough I would shout at every woman who won’t wash their hands after using the loo and leave their germs on the door handle. I hate the waiting rooms at the doctor’s office, and the thought of touching the magazines there gives me the chills. If I am every in a place like that I have to take a shower as soon as I get home.

I am big procrastinator, I don’t do anything till it absolutely has to get done. We are both the same here, in fact, I think I am a little better. We talk about doing the taxes starting some time in January, and I end up doing it at 11:45 PM on April 15th. We have a coffee maker that can be programmed, but I can count the days we actually programmed it for the morning. Every morning whoever wakes up first (mostly me), wash the jar, the grinder and the filter and start the coffee. We can’t function without the morning coffee, but we are too lazy to the do the work in the night when it will be much easier.

I am really really bad at small talk. I simply don’t get the point of making fruitless conversations with people I may never see again in my life. People think I am rude, but I just don’t have the skills. Even if I try, I know it will sound fake, so I simply don’t try.

Siv says “I feel like puking” is my most used phrase. Talking to some people makes me want to throw up, it is not the content, but something in their voice does this to me. Siv never used to believe me, till one day after talking to someone for an hour I came back home and actually threw up!

Now the quirkiest fact about me. This is kind of gross, but I don’t swallow my saliva in the night. This started when I was in sixth standard. A guy who claimed to be a doctor was trying to promote his book about some health stuff, and he was invited to our school to give us a presentation. I don’t remember the context, it was about the bacteria that breed in our mouth. He said if we went to sleep with some rice in our mouth, and fed this rice to a bird when we woke up, the bird would drop dead instantaneously. I was a big germaphobe at that time and I got really scared. I started waking up several times in the night to spit out my saliva and wash my mouth. Then it became a habit, and my body learned not to swallow during the night, even if I don’t wake up. You can imagine how much problems this can cause!

Well, that’s it. There are many more, but I will leave those for a later tag. I am not tagging anyone, since most people I know have done some variation of this. But feel free to take it up if you are in the mood.

Update June 29th – My dear friend Raaga also tagged me for this me-me , I am sure I have easily six more quirky qualities, but I’ll reserve those for some other time. So, Raaga darling, here you go!

I’d also like to thank some really kind souls who thought my blog was Yummy and Excellent. Thank you Arundathi, Ramya, Kalai, Asha and Cynthia. Thank you so much, I really appreciate the gesture.

Ohh you too took some transition time Sig? and I thought I was alone. I am just not able to adjust back after coming back from India. All I want to do these days is sleep . I severe cough/throat infection just worsened the situation. Even blogging looks like a big work to me .

I am laughing out loud at point 6. I am just like you on 1st and 4th. About 4th – my colleagues thought I was some kind of ghost or something because I used to be very quiet the whole day . Since all of them are very talkative, they just could not imagine a quiet person among them

Too bad you are sick Shilpa, lots of people were sick here, including Siv.. luckily I escaped… Hope you feel better soon, and get back to the usual routines… It takes time

And now we know you a little better,Sig!
I cannot believe you actually threw up just like that! It must have been something you ate or was it something else?
Does anyone swallow saliva while asleep? How would you even know that if you really are asleep, huh?

And your blog IS yummy and excellent. :drool:

It wasn’t anything I ate… It was the guy… Something in his voice… the monotonous tone… yeah, yeah I am weird.
if you don’t wake up with a mouthful of saliva every day, then chances are you swallow while you were asleep

yeah CT is like that too, gloooomy, im tired of feling cold… dont know when hardcore spring will start….. i think u r brave to give out yur quirky facts….. i am sort of number one too… and my hubby is the opposite…. if its out of sight, its out of mind for me….. and hubby packs away everything and i forget about it totally….

brave or stupid, I don’t know… Hope the CT weather gets better soon, we had a really nice sunny day in Seattle today…

Hey baby
So life is slowly trotting back to normalcy huh! What a stark difference in the skies…and here there’s only one kind of weather, no surprises in that department, Hot, HOTTER or HOTTEST and always sunny, so much so that I’ll have to start wearing the big glares inside the house also!

It is always fun to read about the little quirks of friends…i don’t know if i’ll ever be able to write something like this about myself…guess i need to be more introspective The last bit is really funny, how could you ever get a good night’s sleep if you don’t swallow the saliva subconsciously!!!

The make up blog sounds like fun, lemme go check it out…have a good Sunday now and would love to chat with you soon! My comment is as big as a small email now…
Hugs.

Yeah, I heard about the heat in India.. Keep yourself cool.. I will catch you soon on chat… I love big comments by the way…

Hey girl! Great job on the tag ! I am so glad you responded!
Also, I sooooo know what you mean in your quirk #4. I CANNOT do small talk at all. I was once at MAC store and the lady beside me started talking about concealers, I just replied to her question and was kept quiet. I did not know what to talk after that. She turned to the make up artist there and told her I did not want to talk to her!!!
Anyhoooo…great getting to know you!

Love,
Indian Girl

Hi Indian Girl, thanks for the tag, I had fun doing it… And I totally know what you are talking about… It happens to me at hair salons and spas and department stores etc

No end to your quirks, Sig, much to us readers’ delight! I did this meme too but the weirdest thing was that I forgot to say it was a weird meme – have to rectify that – I wasn’t as honest as you anyway!

Grinning away at your puke and saliva stories. Btw, have you visited Japan? The loos there are a clean freak’s delight – soap dispensers, plenty of paper, different bidet settings, warmed seats – the works, even at small establishments!

I think even for random things me-me, people normally tend to write all the weird stuff… You should do this tag then, this time be more honest… Can you believe these are my less quirky quirks? I have tons more which I can never share with public

Japan, nope I have never been there… Hope to visit some time… Though I think public bidets are gross

Sig, thats too good. So honest are u dear! I love it! Yeah most of the quirks matches mine. Many times I get urinary troubles during travel as I avoid public toilets. And I wash my hands many times in a day before I feed my baby, prepare food, wash their bottles etc.
The weather even so makes u lazy it hsud be good. Here Chennai is baking us in installments everyday. The Electricity departments aids the weather by cutting off power during peak hot times in the day. I feel rather pathetic

Sig, I would’ve called you weird, esp for point #5 if I weren’t living with someone whose most used phrase is also that! But boy, I wouldn’t have imagined someone puking after listening to someone talk

liked your post this time, so much i can relate to you. even am so messsy …. my hubby just hates me for it. I always need some drive me force to get some work done. i sometimes feel wots wrong with me…i see some people who are like so dedicated to cleaning …

long long time back had opened a blog, now i don’t know wot to do with it. sometimes i feel i have great ideas and am bad with implementing the ideas :nerd: ,

HI SIG I AM A NEW BLOGGER BUT I HAVE TRIED YOUR RECIPES BUT NEVER LEFT A MESSAGE(OR THANKED U ) U KNOW WHAT MADE ME WRITE TODAY, YOUR 6TH POINT. I THINK U R BRAVE . I THOUGHT I AM THE ONLY ONE WITH THAT WEIRD PROBLEM AND I REALLY DONT KNOW THE CAUSE OF IT. I HATE WHEN I COULD NOT ANSWER MY HUSBAND WHEN HE ASKS FOR THE TIME EARLY IN THE MORNING.

Nice to see yoour comment Ramya… So now I know three people with my same problem… Yeah, not being able to answer the phone in the morning is another pain Hope to see you around…

The thing that you said about “sleep with rice in your mouth …” – I had also heard that when I was growing up in India. That did not change my sleeping habits but I have always wondered if that is true. I once thought of conducting an expirement … but never got to it.

Nice Blog, you have here. I browse through this often. Just came across the meme, and No#6, happened to me too. I can not believe it. This guy came to my school too when I was in the middle school for promoting the book!! Till today I remember this. Such a coincidence.